Chely Wright: 'Coming out hurt my career'

Chely Wright has admitted that coming out of the closet as a lesbian has hurt her career.

The country singer - who made the announcement in May 2010 - said that while she tries to remain positive, she has received extremely negative reactions from former fans.

"If it appears from the outside in that it's helped my career, it could be because I haven't talked about the negative," she told lesbian culture website Autostraddle.com.

"You won't hear me bitching and moaning on my Facebook about the hate mail I've gotten. My life has been threatened. I get nasty letters every day, 'I'm through with you Chely Wright, you're going to hell'."

Wright added that even her fellow artists have been hesitant to come forward in support of her.

"They wouldn't want their fans to know they were LGBT-friendly. There are also other artist friends who I never heard from again," she explained.

"There are a lot of other people in the industry that I had a friendly email relationship with, or would occasionally text with that I have not heard a word from."